


Sleep Tight

by bleakcreek



Series: Rhink Oneshots [2]
Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Cuddling & Snuggling, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, Sharing a Bed, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but i realized some people might want a warning for it, the mention of homophobia is just a brief reference to growing up in a religious family in the south
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22553377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleakcreek/pseuds/bleakcreek
Summary: “Do you remember when we used to do this as kids?”
Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Series: Rhink Oneshots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624855
Comments: 17
Kudos: 89





	Sleep Tight

**Author's Note:**

> This barely counts as shippy but I don't think it will particularly appeal to non-shippers. Also, I've written two finished Rhink fics and both of them feature a hotel room and non-sexual physical intimacy, and I don't know what that says about me.
> 
> This wasn't beta'd, so any mistakes are mine.

“Do you remember when we used to do this as kids?”

Rhett’s patting his freshly washed face dry with a hand-towel when Link says it, and he glances sidelong at the hotel mirror to get a good look at him.

He’s fluffing up the pillows on one side of the bed, and when his eyes meet Rhett’s, his glasses are already off. 

Rhett raises an eyebrow at him. “What, you mean when you came on vacation with us?”

He tosses the damp towel back onto the bathroom counter before turning off the bathroom light, leaving the lamp on the bedside table as the only light in the room. With the room’s only light source streaming directly onto Link, his hair looks even more silver than usual. 

“Not that,” Link continues. He’s in joggers and a t-shirt as he climbs into the room’s single bed. It’s the side nearest the door; the side furthest from the AC unit.

It occurs to Rhett that when the concierge informed them that they’d been booked in a single, neither of them had even thought to ask about getting a second room.

“I mean when we used to have sleepovers.” Link turns over on his pillow to face him as Rhett slides in beside him, and it occurs to him how much younger Link looks without his glasses. How vulnerable. “D’you remember — I think it was maybe the fourth time you’d come over? Or maybe it was the fifth. It was definitely at least the third though—”

“Light,” Rhett interrupts, as he rolls onto his side. He glances up at the lamp. 

Link seems to take the hint, because he moves immediately to turn it off, even as he keeps talking. “—Anyway, I think it was maybe a little after Halloween, ‘cause we had that big bag of candy that I hid under my bed, so my mama came in to make sure we’d brushed our teeth an’ weren’t eatin’ candy in bed.”

“And then Mama Sue told me she didn’t like me sleeping on the floor, so she put my pillow at the end of your bed—”

“—And then you thought it was funny to kick me all night!” Link’s voice ticks up at the end like he’s still irritated about it, but even in the dark, Rhett can see the corners of his mouth twitching like he’s trying to fight a smile.

Rhett gives him a gentle little kick, barely more than a bump of his foot against Link’s, and says, “Yeah, I remember that.”

He expects Link to retaliate, to kick him back, to continue the story, to…  _ something _ . He must be going somewhere with it, after all. 

Instead, Link is quiet. He shifts closer to Rhett, so that only a few inches are separating them, and rolls around to face the ceiling. 

He’s so uncharacteristically silent for so long Rhett would think he was asleep, if he didn’t see the occasional fluttering of his open eyes against the darkness.

At last, barely audible, Link says, “Why’d we stop doin' that?”

“The sleepovers? ‘Cause we were roommates, man.”

“Not  _ that. _ I mean the...” he gestures vaguely at the air above his head, “the sleeping in the same bed thing. It felt like one minute it was okay and then the next it was like — it was only okay if we  _ had _ to, and only if we pretended to hate it.”

Rhett remembers being eleven years old, remembers Cole tugging him aside in the hallway after Link’s mama came to take him home, remembers him telling him  _ you oughta stop letting another boy sleep in your bed before people start sayin’ you two ain’t right. _

He didn’t know what his brother meant by that back then, but it was still enough to scare him back into bringing a sleeping bag over to Link’s house.

“Just outgrew it, I guess,” Rhett says instead.

“Mm,” is Link’s noncommittal reply. “Guess so.”

After thirty-five years of friendship with him, Rhett likes to think he’s gotten pretty good at reading Link. More importantly, he knows that on the rare occasion he’s gotten something wrong, they’ve always bounced back from it.

So when Rhett scoots in, closing the last few inches between them, and lifts an arm to give Link a chance to cuddle in closer, he figures — at the absolute worst — Link might get indignant and tell him to get back on his side of the bed, might maybe assume Rhett is just messing with him. It might even kill the conversation for the rest of the night, but they'll be back to normal by breakfast.

It turns out, thought, Rhett’s Link-related instincts are perfect this time, because he immediately feels the warm, solid press of another body next to his. One of Link’s hands lands lightly on Rhett’s chest, right over his heart.

Link makes an exasperated noise at the back of his throat. “Man, why ain’t ‘chu wearin’ a shirt?” He doesn’t move to pull away, though, and even hooks one ankle over Rhett’s. 

“‘Cause I get overheated, man.” Rhett curls his arm to brush the pads of his fingers through the soft hair at the nape of Link's neck. “It’s  _ hot _ in here, and you're so damn picky about the thermostat.”

“You  _ are  _ basically a furnace,” Link grumbles. It sounds like he’s complaining, but from the way he turns his face into Rhett’s chest and presses his cold nose into Rhett’s collarbone, he has a feeling Link doesn’t mind it too much. 

“You like it,” Rhett counters mildly. “Otherwise you wouldn’t’ve kept tyin’ to spoon me while you were sleepin’.” He can feel the last of the tension eke out of Link’s shoulders as he keeps combing his fingers through Link’s hair. 

“...Wasn’t always asleep,” Link says. “That time I latched onto you and you said you couldn’t get me to let go so I just stayed stuck to you all night? I was awake for that one.”

“You coulda just told me you wanted to snuggle, man,” Rhett teases, he knows it’s a mistake the second the words leave his lips.

Right on cue, Link’s whole body locks up. “Yeah, I’m sure that woulda gone  _ great  _ back in our Campus Crusade days,” he snaps. “Or maybe you mean back when we were teenagers, when the only time we could touch without your dad or Cole shooting us dirty look was when we wrestled?”

“Hey, I’m sorry—”

“Screw you, you’re sorry.”

Rhett feels Link start to roll away and immediately locks his arms around him, pinning him in place against his side. Link’s legs go to move next, and Rhett immediately wraps one of his long legs around Link’s, his ankle tucked around the other man’s shin to keep him from pulling away. 

“Let go a’ me!” He keeps wriggling, but can’t get enough leverage to get away. Eventually, he settles for pressing his face into the side of Rhett’s neck and huffing. “I don’t wanna cuddle anymore, I’m upset with you.”

It’s a ridiculous sentence, like something Link might say to Jade for peeing on the carpet, and it’s a testament to Rhett’s self-control that he keeps himself from laughing at it. 

“You can cuddle  _ and  _ be mad at me,” Rhett says, voice somewhere between genuine and patronizing, as he reaches the hand not holding onto Link back toward the nightstand.

“Ugh,” Link groans. Still, he seems to have resigned himself to his fate, and starts to relax back into him. “Wait — what are you grabbing?”

“My phone,” Rhett says. He holds it in front of Link, like it will somehow ease any suspicions Link might have about what he’s up to rather than exacerbating them.

“And why—” Link grabs for it, but Rhett just holds it higher, fully out of Link’s reach, as he unlocks it one-handed. “—Do you need your phone?”

Rhett doesn’t answer, just clicks the shutter button once and lets the flash burst into the room, illuminating the blue of Link’s eyes for one brief moment before it disappears again.

In the picture, Link’s face is set into a deep frown, half-buried in the blankets and tucked neatly against Rhett’s chest. He’s never seen any one person look so adorable and pissed off at the same time. 

“What’re you doin’ with that picture?” Link reaches for the phone again, and Rhett holds it out above his head. “If you post that to instagram—” 

“I’m not putting it anywhere public, don’t worry.” Rhett has the  _ New Message  _ box open, gets about two seconds into typing  _ C-H-R  _ when Link starts struggling for the phone again.

“Oh, no, don’t you  _ dare  _ send that to my wife, she’ll never let me live it down—”

“—I was also gonna send it to Jessie—”

“—Oh, so she can post it to twitter to gain clout with our fans? That’s even  _ worse  _ than sending it to my wife!”

“Sent,” Rhett announces, his thumb making contact with the  _ Send Message _ button just as Link finally manages to grab the phone out of Rhett’s hands. 

_ Jessie McLaughlin is typing…  _ pops up onto the screen almost as soon as the message enters the cloud.

“Man, therapy has made you into an insufferable ass,” Link grumbles, shoving the phone back into Rhett’s hands before he can see Jessie’s no-doubt delighted response to his predicament. 

“I was already an insufferable ass,” Rhett says evenly. “Therapy just made me into an insufferable ass that’s okay with cuddling with my best friend. Now go to sleep, Link.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @ bleakcreek! Thank you for reading. <3


End file.
